School principals to face own skills test

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Parents and teachers will have more say in the competency and
future career of their school's principal under new laws being
introduced by the State Government.

A 20-year ban enshrined in legislation that prevents the
Department of Education hiring principals and other school
executives from interstate or the non-government school sector will
also be lifted, under the bill before State Parliament. It is
expected to come into effect in January.

But the new legislation also represents a significant backdown
by the Minister for Education, Andrew Refshauge, over the
contentious issue of five-year contracts, which were to be renewed
only if principals could soundly demonstrate they were up to
scratch.

These were a core component of an earlier set of reforms,
proposed by Dr Refshauge as a trade-off for wage parity with
Catholic principals, after they won an additional pay rise to
government school teachers and principals in the Industrial
Relations Commission in June.

Instead, principals will now undergo five-year reviews and
smaller annual reviews, with parents and teachers contributing to
the overall assessment of competency.

Where problems with school leadership are identified, principals
will be placed on a performance improvement program and supplied
with the training and support needed to lift their game, rather
than face automatic dismissal or demotion.

The amendments to the Teaching Services Act have earned the
guarded approval of some of the minister's toughest critics over
his earlier reform agenda.

The Public Schools Principals Forum's deputy chairman, Brian
Chudleigh, said support networks and training for struggling
principals was an essential prerequisite to meeting state and
federal demands for increased accountability.

The Federal Government will spend $33.3 billion on schools over
the next four years, but the money is conditional on states,
territories and non-government school authorities meeting a raft of
new accountability measures which include more parental say over
government school principals' performance.

The president of the NSW Teachers' Federation, Maree O'Halloran,
said recruiting from outside the NSW government school system was
unlikely to have even a marginal effect on the overall quality of
leadership in NSW government schools because not very many
principals with the qualifications and expertise would want to come
back into a system with lower pay.

Ms O'Halloran said the legislation was a "bureaucratic and
legalistic response" to a more serious issue - that of a predicted
dearth of school education leaders within the next five to eight
years, when about 80 per cent of existing principals are expected
to retire.

The president of the NSW Primary Principals Association, Geoff
Scott, said opening up the field of potential applicants was
welcome. "But what we have to look at now is how do we attract the
best of our own to apply for these positions, because at the moment
there is a lack of people applying for these positions."

NSW Secondary School Principals Council president, Chris Bonnor,
said the new legislation would send a stronger message of
accountability to the wider community.